TURKEY, Texas – Craig Chancellor tried everything he could, but last November he finally closed the Turkey General Store, leaving the small Texas Panhandle town without a grocery.

Although Chancellor tried to trim overhead and relocated a small cafe he owned into the store, he couldn’t make it work. He paid more for salaries and utilities than he made in sales, and finally, lost more than he could afford.

“It didn’t play the way we wanted it to,” the 48-year-old Chancellor said. “People understand why we had to do it, but they hate it.”

Researchers said Chancellor’s story is being repeated across the country as rural stores struggle to survive amid competition from distant supercenters and relatively high operating costs. The grocery industry and government don’t keep statistics on rural store closures, but experts said a long-running trend seems to be picking up speed.

A survey by Kansas State University backed up that belief, finding that more than 38 percent of the 213 groceries in Kansas towns of less than 2,500 closed between 2006 and 2009.

It isn’t just a store that goes when groceries close, said David Proctor, who studies rural communities at Kansas State. Such closures rob towns of their vitality, with the loss of gathering places and sales tax revenue to fund local governments.

Once such businesses begin closing, small communities can find themselves in downward spirals, said Kathie Starkweather of the Lyon, Neb.-based Center for Rural Affairs.

“If you start to lose something key like a grocery store, people aren’t likely to move there if they don’t have access to food,” she said.